One way of producing gallium nitride light emitting diode (GaNLED) devices is by a transfer process applied after the fabrication of LEDs on 4 inch Si (111) wafers comprising p and n contact formation to the GaN layer. Such a process is described in ‘Substrate Transfer for GaN based LEDs grown in Silicon’, Pham et al, Proceedings 44th International Symposium on Microelectronics IMAPS 2011, Long Beach Calif. After applying a passivation layer, a bonding metal, preferably a Cu/Sn layer is deposited on the GaN layer and on a Si carrier wafer. The wafer is then bonded to the Si carrier wafer using metallic bonding at a temperature of about 250° C. Next, the original Si device wafer is completely removed by grinding and wet etching. GaN-LEDs are thus transferred to a new carrier wafer. A typical problem in this type of process is the occurrence of high stress in the Cu layer during bonding and consequently large wafer warpage when the device substrate is removed. Such a large wafer warpage causes problems for some automatic handling tools and processes like lithography. This problem occurs not only in the above-described GaNLED production process, but in any substrate transfer process involving a permanent metal bond such as a Cu/Sn bond between a carrier substrate and a device produced on a temporary device substrate.